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I’ve written something like 4,000 direct mail letters and direct response ads for golf products now. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Sometimes, the best ads come from sheer desperation. I was hitting the very bottom of my bag of tricks last year, when my client requested yet another “killer” letter

There are two ads referenced in this commentary.  This is the second one (last couple of paragraphs). Another Rodale piece– this time, they got impatient selling individual books about the various parts of men’s lives… and decided to just lump everything together in one gargantuan volume. So I have to cover better sex… weight loss…

Gary Halbert gets credit for the headline and concept on this one. I was working with him at the time, in the last days of the Reagan presidency, when the financial markets — and especially the precious metals markets — were causing investors migraines. Banks were rocky. The only people making any money were the

Here is an early self-defense letter, which struck a major nerve in the customer base for this market. It’s run every year for the last decade in the major magazines and mailed even more often to hotlists. The appeal is simple and to the point: This is hard-core stuff, designed to be learned by people

Every so often, one of my clients decides to go cause trouble in a completely new field.  The following ad appeared in a niche magazine recently, and caused shock waves throughout the industry. Just like we intended. Most markets out there have never seen this type of hard-hitting, personality­ drenched, grab ’em by the throat